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{
    "id": 472480,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/472480/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 152,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "the idea of putting a flat rate for a bid bond. Because when you tender for a job and you are asked for a Kshs50,000 or a Kshs70.000 bid bond, these people cannot afford this money. At the end of it, it will remain on paper. It will remain on the paper that they were given, but they did not seek the opportunities. We can retain the performance bonds because with those ones, you have already been guaranteed the job and you can actually be funded by financial institutions easily without having to struggle when you are doing a bid bond. The young people of this country do not have the title deeds and logbooks that people and banks are looking for. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to commend the Government for the steps it has taken. First of all, it is the fact that you can register for getting the AGPO certificate from the Treasury online. My only plea to the same Ministry would be to make sure that this information goes to the ground so that people can know that whenever I click on a computer, I can print my certificate within a day and use it to tender for a job. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue would be on funding Local Purchase Orders (LPOs). I would hate to be in a situation where we will only have this 30 per cent reserved yet we cannot tender and the time given elapses when you have not supplied. Then it would mean that these young people will be told that they were not able to do the job they had been given. I know, as Kenya Young Parliamentarians (KYP) outside this House and the National Assembly, we had petitioned that even the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) and the Women Enterprise Development Fund (WEDF) can cater for some of this such that when a young person, a woman or a person with disability has an LPO, they can finance or cover their bid bonds. These are the proposals that we need to explore. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other bottleneck is the audited accounts. When you look at the tenders as they are advertised every day, you will see that one of the very mandatory requirements is audited accounts, say for three or five years. For many people who are registering companies and who are taking advantage of this 30 per cent, they do not have that kind of experience. We should be lenient with this special group so that it also catches up. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue is about the list of other clients which is what job seekers face every time that they apply for a job. Job seekers are asked for five to seven year experience. This is similar to asking someone who is seeking a tender to show a list of their former clients and yet theirs is a new company. This may be a company that you want to build and a company that you have just registered to take advantage of this allowance. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue is about the transparency and how Government institutions are carrying out procurement. We know that some institutions are already putting this up in the newspapers and indicating the categories for special groups. They are also showing the jobs that are qualified for this group. That should also be accompanied by some consequences. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}